Elitism is part of being human. There is literally no way to escape from the fact that people are constantly, perpetually looking down on others for reasons that have little practical merit while simultaneously holding themselves above others using reasons that are equally hollow. It’s the ever-pressing desire to distinguish oneself from those around them; a cry for individuality in a world where individuality is no longer possible. In a world where you have to stand well above the crowd to achieve even slight success (definitions of what success means aside), is it really that shocking that people look at art, music, food, video games, cars, clothing, possessions, obsessions, politics, philosophies, and lifestyles as ways to further their own sense of self-superiority? It’s all relative, too. Someone can think themselves as superior because they listen to Band X which is somehow artistically superior to Band Y, yet at the same time proponents of Band Y think the same about listeners of Band X. Let’s face it: it is elitist to even say that one is above elitism, as it is just another way to assert your superiority over others.

Perhaps nowhere is this superiority complex more prevalent than heavy metal. It is the embodiment of musical elitism, a place where you can be dismissed as a credible “true metal” fan for liking one band deemed so delicately as “complete shit” by the larger crowd. We’ve all seen it, and we’ve all done it. Anyone who has listened to metal has called out someone’s taste in order to fuel that warm and fuzzy feeling of douchebaggery that lingers in their gut, while at the same time being completely shattered when another denizen of the internet makes an off-color comment about their beloved one-neckbeard black metal band. And you know what? Everyone is wrong.

One argument could be that the main functional purpose of elitism in a genre such as metal is to perpetuate quality. However, black metal is a fine example of how elitism both helps and ruins quality music. With bands such as Cradle of Filth, it is no secret that their endeavors as of late have been the bane of many a black metal elitist, including yours truly, but somehow the noxious cloud of elitism has unfairly labeled the entire band as “complete shit” based only off a few recent blunders – albeit serious ones. In a way, this universal panning of their later material is criticism that sets standards for quality, but those standards for quality don’t always carry over to bands that have more “elite” characteristics to them. Bands like Burzum have produced some incredibly awful material, similar to how Cradle of Filth have produced several dreadful endeavors, yet the reputations of these bands couldn’t be more different. Dusk…and Her Embrace was an important album, as was Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, yet only the latter is still making an impact on its band’s reputation even after the band has long since forsaken the sound.

So, elitism makes good albums disappear when they are made by bands viewed by the hivemind as “terrible”, yet easily shrugs off strings of awful releases by bands which are seen as pivotal or fit certain criteria. That might be viewed as a cost of doing business, because in the grand scheme of things Hvis Lyset Tar Oss has had a larger impact on the genre than Dusk…, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that that impact was for the better. I’m sure any black metal fan is familiar with the mountains of bands festering in the genre’s underground claiming Burzum as an influence, yet they can hardly even play a coherent guitar riff, let alone write one. However, these bands tend to fit into the black metal elitist’s definition of good black metal more than bands that try to break the mold and release something worthy of praise. I would rather listen to Deafheaven’s Roads to Judah than Ildjarn’s Forest Poetry, if only because the former is an expansion and release of the sound that the latter is so desperately trying to keep buried beneath the dirt covered in cliché and fuzz. That’s not to say Forest Poetry is a bad album and Roads to Judah is a classic, it’s just that one is hated for the sole reason that it doesn’t mold easily with the elitist model while the other is in quite good standing despite the fact that it is objectively the more amateur composition. Thus, it is true that elitism sets standards for quality, but it also ruins those standards by either not enforcing them or not recognizing when they are met. When quality is a law written and enforced by an elitist mindset, that law is never enforced for certain bands while others can never be in compliance with that law due to way in which it was written.

Schisms have also been created within numerous sub-genres of metal, mainly between the so-called “old school” and “new school” approaches to a given sound. Thrash and death metal, namely, fall victim to this plague, with elitists claiming how things always used to be better back in the 80’s or early 90’s. Sure, old Sadus or Exodus is great stuff, but does that mean that thrash can’t go on, can’t evolve? Same goes with death metal, with numerous claims of how the only good modern death metal bands are those that play in the old-school style. It’s a tiring argument because it is one that is aggressively against progress, even when, in the case of thrash, the genre is actively decaying due to a lack of creativity. Death metal is not quite at that point yet, but the huge prominence on the “old school” sound, especially within the more underground death metal scene, has the potential to be a curse. It is possible to effectively combine the new and the old in ways that kick-starts creativity, but with so much misguided pressure from genre elitists to stay pure and keep to their roots, it becomes a choice of whether or not a band wants to potentially alienate fans simply by changing things up a bit.

Then there is the transcendence of the 20-something year old metal elitists that scour the blogs and underground zines above certain “gateway” bands that they have long since left behind. The likes of Slipknot, Disturbed, Killswitch Engage, Avenged Sevenfold, All That Remains, Korn, and other bands that the metal elitist cherished as an angsty high school success story are now as forgotten as the JNCO jeans and wallet chains they used to don every day during freshman year. Do these bands deserve to be suddenly hated despite their importance in the musical lineage of our trve metal elitist? I think not. The surge of nu-metal in the late 90’s and the rise of metalcore in the 2000’s was a huge influence in not only my journey into underground metal but in nearly all of the scathing elitists on the internet. Precious few of them were even alive when Bathory’s self-titled debut was released in 1984, and there’s no way that a white, upper-middle class kid born in the late 80’s or early 90’s just stumbles into second-wave Norwegian black metal at age 13 and thinks “Wow, this is way better than Limp Bizkit!” So I give credit to Slipknot and Korn and their ilk for introducing so many impressionable youths to distorted guitars and screaming vocals. In fact, listening to these bands is still a great experience, and a nostalgic one at that. So why are they hated? Because they are part of a sub-genre of metal that is now passé, that is no longer cool to like despite musicianship better than your average one-man black metal band and lyrical content arguably less laughable than a lot of death metal.

That’s what it comes down to then: elitism is a hatred of certain bands or sub-genres that are outside of a person’s given norm. It’s a concept that can easily be seen in all manner of elitism, because people have a natural tendency to ostracize what is different in order to make themselves feel more secure and more empowered. So am I here saying that I am above all elitism? Absolutely not. If anything, I’m an elitist asshole myself, and that’s just part of being not only a metal fan, not only a music fan, but a human being. Those who are metal elitists, those who denounce elitism – we’re all just the same, we’re all trying to make ourselves feel different and feel like we actually have something that defines ourselves as unique. So let’s not dwell on it for 1500 words like I have thus far. Let’s instead listen to what we like, what makes us happy, and what makes us headbang, regardless of whether it’s a cool band or an influential artist. If you like a band, then it’s a good band, regardless of how many naysayers are crying the contrary. I can guarantee that behind each and every metal elitist is a liar; someone who secretly loves to jam Cradle of Filth and rocks out in the car to “People=Shit” or still owns their tattered Atreyu t-shirt or keeps their Limp Bizkit CDs next to their Immolation albums or likes the direction Deafheaven have taken black metal. Who are we to judge? We’re all doing it too. It’s funny, then, that despite our ridiculous attempts to assert our dominance over others each and every one of us are really the same.

yes awesome post, highlights some of the points that make up the worse side of this site (people being overly aggressive and overly sensitive about trivial shit, users taking elitism way too far etc.).

I can certainly identify, and I always find myself feeling secretly guilty when I step up to defend my favourite bands in a thread.

If anything, I usually try to take the stance of explaining what it is that I enjoy about which-ever band it is that I'm defending, rather than being butt-hurt by a comment or scouring the offending user's ratings for an embaressing nugget that I can throw in said user's face.

This article helps me remember why I come here, to share my thoughts and feelings about the music I love, and to be inspired by those I meet, whether they listen to Mercyful Fate or Alter Bridge.

@Kyle: well formulated post. although I'm sure we're all aware of this, why we still find ourselves incapable at times to not be hypocritical about just goes to show how deeply rooted our desire is to be unique. I blame a capitalistic societal doctrine. viva la revoluciÃ³n!

this is why there is nothing more ironic than elitist metal listeners calling mold-breaking bands & their fans "hipsters." the way i see it, that reaction is fueled by a need to appear elite, which is the exact definition of hipster behavior. the pursuit of "trve" and "hip" tastes are the same thing (one being staunchly conservative and the other being obsessed with identifying the next trend) and both are meaningless. for people who ostensibly care about "authenticity" as much as underground metal fans, there is a disturbing amount of posturing that goes on in that community.

"Let your beloved mothers think only about you on this Motherâ€™sDay by sending them a bunch of dazzling and colorful Flowers or a yummy Send Cake dipped in dark Chocolate flavor containing your love and speaks of vitality and royalty everywhere in Germany. Send Flowers to Mummy and express your love."

This was an fascinating read, excellent work Kyle. As much as I talk shit about them now, Slipknot were important to me back in the day and were instrumental at getting me into heavier types of metal (eg Death, Carcass, Dissection, etc). Glad to see someone taking an unbiased look at this whole thing but still admitting their bias, I love reading things like this.

I did not all like that analogy as an introduction - given that this a very vague topic of semantics, terminology and standards the logic just falls flat when it comes to universal applicability. Granted, I see your point - I'd just never go as far as claiming universal validity with it.

That being said, I did like the rest of the article with its more precise subject matter and while my personal introduction to metal did start simultanoeusly with a bunch of angsty teen music and I never liked KoRn and Slipknot much (think more along the lines of Disturbed, Mushroomhead and that latin "rap rock" band whose name I forgot) - it probably applies in a lot of cases.

" the way i see it, that reaction is fueled by a need to appear elite, which is the exact definition of hipster behavior. the pursuit of "trve" and "hip" tastes are the same thing (one being staunchly conservative and the other being obsessed with identifying the next trend) and both are meaningless."

Well-put and very true.

" I never liked KoRn and Slipknot much (think more along the lines of Disturbed, Mushroomhead and that latin "rap rock" band whose name I forgot)"

I was a big Disturbed listener as well. Same thing applies to these bands and others like it.

and yeah i remember buying the sickness when i was like 9 in walmart (got the edited version YEAH!) and the old black lady behind the counter gave me this strange look, she probably thought i worshipped satan but jokes on her cause disturbed isnt even real metal@!

As much as I agree there is one aspect of elitism that hasn't really been covered here and it has to do with the time and energy we put into music compared to a lot of people.
Sure we started off with bands like Slipknot and Disturbed and they deserve recognition for this and probably get put down more than they should (by myself included). However, they were just a start, from there our thirst for more brought us deeper and deeper and we've spent a lot of time looking up new music and listening to new music, opening ourselves up to new genres, discovering bands that push boundaries, etc. So it's hard not to feel a certain sense of elitism when a casual music lsitener comes up to us and starts worshipping bands like Slipknot, Disturbed, A7X, etc especially when these people aren't open minded about discovering new things.
Granted music is ultimately a subjective subject, I feel that, like any other subject, the more you are engrossed in it and the more you study it, the more you get to know it and can identify things that a casual listener can't because he hasn't been exposed to them. So in a sense, I feel like that form of elitism can be warranted although you can play it out in a douchey way or in a more respectful way.

Interesting article and a nice read. I agree with most of your statements, aside from the last sentence. It is simply not true that 'we are all the same'. Yes of course, many of us consider ourselves 'elitists' and ultimately we are all human beings, sure - but this argument is much too trivial to be valid for this discussion. The point is, if you're a music teacher, academic or at least a music student, you clearly have a better idea of technique than the average listener in general. For instance think about rhythm types, composing/reading sheet music, riffing skills, ghost notes in drumming etc. - the normal guy from around the block does not know a shit about such things, considering the fact he does not play an instrument himself or is'nt kind of an autodidact/learning freak. I would even go so far to say that the average "sputnik elitist" does not know all of these details. So, what I am trying to point out is: one person with proper skill and knowledge will automatically always(!) have a more valid/reliable/objective opinion than a person without knowledge of the certain genre/instrument/band/etc. - always. Only he or she (the critic/musician/lecturer) has the right tools to rate and evaluate music in an appropriate and at least approximately generalizable way/manner. The rest should remain silent when it comes to a discussion about skill or the like. But: this should not simultaneously mean that a "casual listener" is not allowed to hype, praise, celebrate or enjoy his or her music, god no - it should only mean that he or she should kind of 'know her place' and know about the weight of his/her musical opinion, aka being 'lower than an elitits view on certain topic xyz' and rather defensive (trying to learn/educating oneself etc.).
I hope you got my point. Haters gonna hate, but truth must be told.

Of course people educated in music or those who truly understand how to compose have the ability and even the right to hold themselves above the average person or average music fan. That's not what my argument is about. We as music fans and music critics can say whatever we like about whatever we listen to, what I'm trying to say is that it's ridiculous to hold people's opinions over their heads as a means to intentionally put them down and discredit their opinions. Music is arguably 100% subjective, yet we are constantly trying to make it 100% objective, which simply isn't going to happen. So what instead happens is you have people subjectively making statements they claim to be objective in an attempt to make it seem like they are more knowledgeable than they really are.

"This is very true, as it would take someone equally versed or even more of an expert to disprove it. People who know what they're talking about or at least sound like it can get away with murder."

And less people are likely to question it or as you said, let alone challenge it on a similar plane. It's pretty much become a bane of research and education considering the vast flows of bullshit out there. (diets and nutrition are the best example)

" So, what I am trying to point out is: one person with proper skill and knowledge will automatically always(!) have a more valid/reliable/objective opinion than a person without knowledge of the certain genre/instrument/band/etc. - always."

i disagree with this pretty vehemently. dissection of music in technical terms bears almost no relevance to music criticism, even at the highest levels, because for music to be enjoyable at all it must follow the physical set of rules that the natural world relies on. whether or not you can recognize a g-chord or a chromatic progression is simply irrelevant to the discussion of music as a subjective experience.

sure, technical dissection has it's merits, but not in the consumption of music as a subjective medium. just because you cant pick out the participial of a sentence doesnt mean that that sentence has any less meaning, and since music is a universal language i think the same concept applies.

and this is coming from someone who has trained in music pretty extensively, even if only at an amateur level

Literature is another nice example, whether some "educated" people declared something "classic" after spending a shitton of time dissecting it is pretty much irrelevant as to how enjoyable the experience will be to someone.

"Literature is another nice example, whether some "educated" people declared something "classic" after spending a shitton of time dissecting it is pretty much irrelevant as to how enjoyable the experience will be to someone. "

Not saying I disagree (I don't) but I just want to play devil's advocate for a second. Within some of the more complex literary classics (Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov comes to mind) there is a massive philosophical, sociological and religious underpinning that takes an educated mind to pick up on, put into perspective, analyze, understand, and apply. Would you not say that people who can do this will have a more enjoyable experience with the novel than those who cannot? Sure, the story itself is fantastic, but the true brilliance and genius of the work comes into play in chapters like "The Grand Inquisitor" or "Ivan's Nightmare and the Devil" where the story itself takes a back seat to the story hidden beneath the text.

i dont really think that education necessarily dissolves those barriers. i maintain that anyone can read joyce and understand it if they put enough effort into it, regardless of how much training in literature theyve received. sure, it wont be very easy, but its not impossible.

but, even at that, i think the music/literature comparison kind of breaks down when you think about criticism that way. that guy was making the point that a technical understanding of music gives you a more objective perspective, which i strongly disagree with. the comparison i made to the grammar of a sentence works much better i think, because much like the physical rules that control how music must be created (you are always bound to the physical laws of sound) grammar is similarly unchangeable.

it would be like writing an essay on the historical background of an album versus writing an essay on the technical aspects of the music. they both serve vastly different functions and i tend to believe that the latter is irrelevant in any position other than it's own discourse. being able to recognize HOW something is made, in the world of art, is much different than dissecting how it functions in the world.

"thereâ€™s no way that a white, upper-middle class kid born in the late 80â€™s or early 90â€™s just stumbles into second-wave Norwegian black metal at age 13 and thinks â€œWow, this is way better than Limp Bizkit!"

You do realize that anecdotes and experiences are not valid in disproving statements regarding general tendencies? Inferring that due to the inherent variability of this statement the whole article is "wrong" is just highly fallacious.

At least use some arguments to support your stipulations - jeeze, not even the effort of a straw man.

But this is wrong and pure conjecture just like the entirety of the article
But this is wrong and pure conjecture just like the entirety of the article
But this is >wrong<
and
>pure conjecture<
just like the
>entirety<
of the article

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of your bullshit.

"Ill Nino?"
Idk, did they cover that "I can feel it coming in the air" or however that track goes?

"Wait I don't get it both of those things are correct on their own. One is not predicated on the other."
Your ability to contradict yourself is stunning. I tip my "you won the bullshitter of the month award" hat to you.

i seem to vaguely remember him showing up around the same time all that insurrection/skeletorissatan stuff started going down and just kind of assumed he was someone from that group. maybe im wrong but he does bait a lot.

Hyperion: either you missed my point or we simply have incompatible views. You said,

'i maintain that anyone can read joyce and understand it if they put enough effort into it, regardless of how much training in literature theyve received.'
- which I would never question. I would even side with you on that point and state, that everyone has the ability to understand a Tool record, as long as he is willing to spin it for eternity and really look into the subject (here being "Progressive"). But my assumption is, that until that very point, he or she should remain cautious and humble in a discussion, especially when facing an apparently more knowledgeable/erudite dialogue partner.

Also, you seem to contradict yourself with the grammar-thingy. Of course somebody that understands grammar well will get a complex and nested text or sentence much more quickly than someone who has poor grammar skills - or would you want to argue with me about this? So, sure - the rules of grammar are fixed, as well as the rules for sheet music etc., but one has to know about it first to make full sense out of it and understand the true meaning behind something. Not everything is individual taste. The latter is purely the subjective part of the judgement, which by all means isn't the only thing in the world to judge music. It's only one part of the cake. You can like or dig anything you want and party to it as much as you prefer (and no one will blame you for that!), but then it's your own opinion and you don't have to be butthurt when your (e.g. technically bad) artist xyz will never get a grammy/kerrang/good review at all. That's not how a full, valid opinion is based and in the end you will definitely not reach it by counting out technical facts just because they seem secondary to yourself at the very moment.

tl;dr: If individual taste means everything for you in music and you're keeping the view that only that point is needed for a trustworthy opinion, than good luck selling a scratchy 7inch with twenty non-rhythmic clangs from your two aluminium toilet brushes. In your ears it could sound like peace and joy, of course, but every other person in the world with only the slightest idea of music will immediately tell you that it is bullshit.
Sorry for the exaggeration but I feel we need to find the same level here or the conversation makes no sense.

Ps @Wolfhorde: you're absolutely right, such errors exist. But I am not implying that one should swallow everything blindly or without a second thought, just cause it comes from someone with knowledge. Your own thinking and criticism will always matter, as long as it is reasonable and somewhat constructive .)

"So, sure - the rules of grammar are fixed, as well as the rules for sheet music etc., but one has to know about it first to make full sense out of it and understand the true meaning behind something. Not everything is individual taste."

language is much more fluid than this though. you can derive the same amount of meaning from a sentence and not grasp the intricacies of the grammar that a grammarian would. the same is true for music, or anything that falls under the realm of "art" for that matter (if you can even define what art is, which you cant).

and you cannot seriously argue that art is anything other than a completely subjective experience. you can argue until you're red in the face that objective criticism of art is attainable but it just simply isnt a realistic and attainable persuit. i guarantee that someone somewhere does enjoy those banging toilet brushes, and you're making the case that their subjective experience is completely invalidated by their lack of technical knowledge. so what if someone who has studied music for 30 years also enjoys the piece? does that automatically give it validity?

you will never convince me that art can transcend the boundaries of the subjective, so we might as well agree to disagree if that is the point you're trying to make.

cool article, the section about nu-metal made me smile as i remember being 14/15 years old jamming limp bizkit, slipknot, il nino, linkin park etc and a whole new (or should that be nu-world) opened up in front of me as i left behind the music i'd listened to for years (gabber, techno, hardcore) and started listening to metal. I'd been a fan of rock music since a young age due to my dad playing led zeppelin a frigging lot, but obviously at such a young age i didn't want to listen to "dad music" haha. So i found love in the aforementioned electronic genres (i actually now listen to them again occasionally) but eventually the sound of amplified guitars and glorious violent noise took over and here i am sat in my living room at 2am with the new morbus chron album destroying my ear drums.

But on the subject of elitism, i do find it amusing the attitudes people have on the internet at times in regards to personal taste and giving people shit about what they listen to, because in the grand scheme of things aren't we all outsiders looking in? In the real world outside, we are the weirdos who people look at sideways when we pull up outside a friends house with what sounds like a 12 man knife fight erupting from our cars speakers. Outside of the internet i have no contact with anyone who likes any of the music i do, all of my friends either listen to mainstream stuff on the radio or hide in their own sub genres (mainly prog & northern soul). So i prefer to be as encompassing as i can whilst spreading the blackened word m/